LOL care to share W11cE?
industrial design is hard as crap. and opposed to the exact sciences behind mechanical/electronic eng. anything involving design will mean subjectivity and therefore being hard as crap to get right..
i think your boss gave you sound advice unless you really plan and changing majors or something.
Every engineering discipline has a design aspect. Whether it is Aerospace or Industrial. What makes a good design is if it meets the client's criteria for the design. It is as simple as that.
Now the process itself specifically speaking maybe much more difficult depending on exactly what it is that you are designing. Designing a Hubble Telescope is probably a bit more challenging than a paper plane for example. However, I will re-emphasize that design is part every discipline there is.
The general approach for it is also the same. The steps that are taken are the same also in almost every field.
I am not sure what you are referring to Industrial design but to be general industrial design and manufacturing is very similar to Mechanical engineering design and manufacturing. Both processes use CAD/CAM (Computer aided design, Computer aided Manufacturing).
Infact in college it is a general understanding that if you want to get an easy Engineering degree you go for industrial engineering because it heavily focuses on the process rather than specifics. I can go into more detail but this should suffice for now.